I don’t know if everyone has garrison quirks but I sure do. I realized I NEVER log out unless the character is inside the Town Hall. I can’t leave them out in the open, what if it rains while I’m gone.

Cat likes to chat with the miners, maybe she’s keeping up moral.

When she rides into her Garrison there are sometimes followers standing by the fountain. As she rides by they usually wave and then she feels guilty if she doesn’t stop to acknowledge the wave. She doesn’t like to snub them. Okay, okay … it’s me. How weird is that.

But the weirdest quirk is Cat’s ongoing battle with Oscaar, I’ve never known anyone to get on her nerves like that, she’s usually so mellow.

Oscaar I’m warning you, DO NOT COME IN THIS BARN! Oscaar! Oscaar! Dammit!

OSCAAR! We have spoken on this subject before! DO NOT ride your Elekk in the Barracks! These guards have to sleep in here! GET OUT!

I thought she should get away from the Garrison for a little relaxation.

Let’s go to the Darkmoon Faire Cat, forget about Oscaar for a while, have a little fun.

See Cat, all you needed was to get away from the worry of being a Commander. Isn’t this fun … let’s try the race!

Big mistake.

We watched videos, Cat tried again and again. The more she tried the worse she got. She was getting more stressed out by the race than even Oscaar made her. I felt bad … responsible somehow.

I went to lunch and she wouldn’t leave the Faire. I came back and she was still there, buying bag after bag after bag of tokens.

Cat, you could have bought some nice gear with all that money, how much have you spent?

No answer … she’s so focused I don’t think she hears me, poor thing.

That Trixi Sharpworth was laughing all the way to the bank, that Goblin took Cat for so much money.

FINALLY. Cat made it. She was officially a Darkmoon Racer Roadhog. That Cat takes her toys very, very seriously. Hopefully now we can get back to something more soothing and peaceful … like beating everyone in Black Temple to death until they drop those pets.

Right now we’re not only waiting for WoD, we’re waiting for the REVELATION of the release date. I know we’re all making the assumption that it will be a date other than:

This item will be released on December 20, 2014.
Pre-order now.

Journey to a classic age

Drop into the action at level 90

Stake your claim on Draenor

Power your way to level 100

Because that would just be … stupid. We’d hit our enrage timer and who wants that. So yeah … these are the times that try men’s souls. And women and Tauren and Forsaken and Dwarfs … yeah, pretty much all of us.

So idle hands are Gul’dan’s play things or however that quote goes, so I thought Cat needed to work on some things that she won’t want to do once WoD is here.

Archeology, how’s that coming Cat? Cat! One dig a day is not what I meant, I meant finish up Pandaria! What are you doing anyway?

Achievements? Great, that works! What did you get yesterday? Better Off Dred? Okay, that’s great. What else? That’s it? How about Bloody Rare, you’ve been working on that for a while now. Are you done? Kraator? That’s it? This whole expansion and you only got that one? What have you been doing?

Promotion? Promotion for who? A hotel chain? What? Oh, THE hotel chain. They own all the Inns? Okay, I guess if you’re gainfully employed that’s a good enough reason … FOR FREE? You’re doing it for free! Cat, that’s not how employment works, are you at least getting millage for all the flight paths?

Jarel? You mean your boyfriend Jarel? Oh, he works for them, of course. He thought it might help? Why, is he in trouble? Oh! Do I think he looks shifty? Erm … no … of course … not. I can’t IMAGINE why they’d have any doubts about Jarel.

Yes, I’m sure your promotion will help them see he’s a fine upstanding employee who has only the best intentions. No, I am NOT being a smart ass, I really mean it Cat.

Are you having fun? Sigh … okay … I guess that’s all that matters Cat. No, hey … you just keep on having your fun … Bloody Rare will still be here in two years.

What? Guess where you are? I hate that game, I’m not playing. No, it IS NOT fun. Ask someone else. Jeez … WoD … please hurry.

Or not as the case may be. I had pretty much ignored Operation Shieldwall until I heard tell of a Rodent Crate that could be purchased with 2000 Domination Point Commissions. Inside this crate lurk Sumprush Rodents and once I found that out Cat became very patriotic (she’s usually not that into killing the opposite faction) and the slaughter commenced.

To get the achievement you must kill all three of the opposing faction’s rare elites. This really isn’t about how to do that, a very detailed writeup can be found at Icy Veins which covers just about everything you need to know. My problem is something different, trust.

Let me back up. Cat ran off to find these dudes and found old Kar Warmaker suspiciously just standing there alone, no guards. Well this is lucky! Not so much, I soon found out why he’s always standing there with no guards. Cracking Blow. I know about it, I watch for it, I run behind him, I AM behind him and BAM it hits me. He’s doesn’t turn around and say HAHA GOT YA, he’s still facing away but every time, I get hit, Shadowmeld and give up at that point.

I decided to wait around and see if I could learn what to do by watching. A Shaman approached and great preparation began. He began by dropping all kinds of doodads and calling up earth, wind and fire and then pulled old Kar. I felt bad for him as he apparently hadn’t read the memo about Cracking Blow because his preparation for the fight ended up lasting longer than the fight.

There must be a way to avoid Cracking Blow but so far I haven’t seen it or figured it out and if Cat gets hit once by that she might as well pack up and go home. Okay then, we’ll try someone else.

How about Muerta. I soon found out that if the Heavy Mook and Or’Dac were alive Cat just can’t survive trying to kill Muerta while being beaten upon by those two, too much for her. Luckily I happened on Muerta alone and the Heavy Mook and Or’Dac didn’t respawn til the end and I managed to loot her and Shadowmeld before she died from them beating on her.

Muerta is not hard if alone, I imagine for a class with the ability to relocate her this fight’s pretty easy.

And then there’s Ubunti the Shade who is usually always already engaged when I come along or just not up. He’s a real comedian because he chose this morning when I didn’t have my contacts in to show up. Har har Ubunti, I’m not falling for that.

SO ANYWAY … I decided to try to get help. I assured people that I didn’t want an invite if it dropped and I was met with either extreme skepticism or silence. If I need help to do these rares than obviously I have NO NEED for an invite I just want the achievement. Nope, no takers. What we have here is a crisis of trust. I can’t say I blame them really.

I don’t know what to do, I’m thinking of giving references to my trustworthiness. Maybe I could offer a list of bloggers who would attest to my honor at keeping my word. Sigh …

So after all this, in an attempt to try to regain our self-respect, Cat and I went to beat up all the Spirit Tamers. YEAH! TAKE THAT! You feeling me Tamer! Who’s the badass now! WE ARE! Whew, it helped. We feel so much better now. Thank Elune for pet battles.

I got nothing. No important information like carrot cake to impart. Yet I still feel the need to communicate so I will, but I promise I’ll try to come up with something of value, be it WoW or SWTOR related over the weekend.

While I’m mentioning SWTOR, I have something of a problem. I had thought the timing of SWTOR was perfect, I could have a vacation while waiting for Mists of Panderia like I’ve done in the past with other games, but what I didn’t count on was that I’m having trouble finding time to vacation there. I’m really behind. I haven’t hit the “I have nothing to do in WoW wall” yet so my poor Bounty Hunter is tapping her foot at me, looking at her watch. She doesn’t even have a last name yet. The other problem is I really like SWTOR, so how do I decide who to piss off. I decided my new friends will just have to be patient.

I finally finished off the Elders of the Dungeons which was the last thing I needed to get my Elder title. Now I’m ready if Blizzard decides to let us do title mashups. Yay! The last dungeon was Utgarde Pinnacle where Ceremonial Pyre Mantle dropped. There they are, up there. I can’t let them go, I really like them. I don’t think they go with that outfit but I’m saving them along with all my cool staves and the Cowl of Defiance which I would wear if I decided to show helm. But it’s hard to find a hat that works with those ears.

So now, I promised my Forsaken Warlock she was next on the priority list. The problem is I have to get my Warlock back on. Right before Cata I was at the peak of my warlockery knowledge and I’ve pretty much forgotten most of it and it’s probably changed since then anyway.

I have to go do some studying and then I’ll listen repeatedly to this, which for whatever reason really helps me connect with my inner warlock. So that’s it, just wanted to chat a bit before lunch … I’m having carrot cake with the sautéed souls of my enemies.

First, I don’t know what my Druid is doing, always hanging around in that dive. The Slaughtered Lamb is a Warlock hangout. I guess my Warlock told all the others about Jarel Moor. I don’t know why they all fall for the biker types. It will lead to nothing but heartbreak, mark my words, but I can’t always be around to watch out for them.

I was GOING to say I can’t talk long as I’m on a mission, but I see there is ANOTHER scheduled maintenance today, after the scheduled maintenance yesterday so I guess I have plenty of time to talk.

I’m in a hurry to complete the Elders of the Dungeons achievement because then I’ll have the Elder title and I’m making a request to Blizzard which I’m sure they’ll be eager to implement for me, I mean how hard could it be. I jest Blizzard, “how hard could it be” has been used so many times on me in my working career that I just wanted to see how it felt to say it. But it would be a nice gesture and would help keep our morale high while we wait for Pandaria. And this is like my fifth request, they haven’t fulfilled any of my other desires so I’m pretty sure this time they will … oh, and I have another. So at least one of them they might do for me.

I got the one I was dreading out of the way yesterday. Maraudon, yeah, no need to say more, just Mara. Some kind person had very good directions posted on Wowhead so it turned out to be relatively painless and I made sure I could hearth out before I did it. Last time I found that elder I was in there lost for about 3 hours.

Off topic here for a second, my computer just locked up and I tried to Alt F4 out of it. Does that mean I play WoW too much? I have a lovely new computer with a GeForce GTX 560 Ti that frequently locks up. Not in game, but almost exclusively while writing posts … in WordPress. I don’t know if it hates WordPress or Firefox. Very inconvenient but I give up. Searching for fixes has only resulted in the knowledge that a great many other people are also in the same pickle. But enough of that.

So anyway, all I want from Blizzard is to kind of mix and match my titles. I know the Elder title is supposed to be “Elder Whoever” but I think we should be able to combine our titles and move them around so that I could truly represent the real me. Ancient the Insane Elder would be just perfect. I’m sure now that they’ve been alerted they’ll get right on that. So that’s why I’m in a hurry to complete the Elders of the Dungeons, so I’ll be ready.

My other request came to me after Ironyca found out that there is a new Ironman Challenge going over on the EU servers. Of course Ironsally was all ears, any chance to gain the spotlight and she’s right there. I think she wants to interview the participants. She even joined their forum to make sure she could follow everything. But here’s the thing. These people aren’t just Ironmen, they are CRAZY IRONMEN, which is even better as they’ve included a no-death clause, YIKE!!

Ironyca, Vrykerion and I twittered … tweeted … whatever about it and Vrykerion, one of the founders along with Pysnister of The WoW Ironman Challenge, said they had considered having a no-death requirement but had tabled that one. Sheesh, I’m glad they did. I could never have done that one.

So, if anyone completes this new Ironman I wanted to be able to send them something. Blizzard, you already have the faction balloons how hard could it be to add balloons to the store. You know, you could pick, Happy Birthday!, Get Well Soon!, Go Go Ironman!, yeah, that kind of thing. I know I would buy them, so just think about it will you.

Oh and I see someone else has requests for Blizzard! Hmmm, these are somewhat more sensible than mine so maybe these might get done. Professions could certainly use an overhaul. Blizzard, take a look at what The Godmother has to say, she’s done all the hard thinking part already, make it so!

How do you express your geekery? Do you own obvious paraphernalia like a Horde-symbol bumper sticker, in-joke tshirts like the dps/ups pun, or less obviously related items like a gift from a guildie? Rather than physical indicators, do you mix nerd lingo into your everyday speech or talk/post about geekdom in non-nerd spaces? How do you advertise your nerd tendencies? Does it help you to attract new nerd friends?

I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m a geek, never really have. But recently, I’ve noticed that I don’t really seem to care anymore what anyone thinks of anything about me. It’s like my last birthday was some kind of tipping point. I used to answer my business phone with a tone that implied that I was dressed in a suit. Yesterday I talked to a potential client for the FIRST TIME and I told her that I would email the information to her “before nightfall, muhahaha.” I KNOW! Have I completely lost it. Anyway, we’ll see how that goes, haven’t heard back from her yet. It’s a law firm. I’m sure lawyers are jokey people, aren’t they?

As always I’m disorganized and unprepared and only have this one thing but I wanted to secure my nerd cred so here’s a photo of my note holder, I checked the important note and it’s reminding me to watch The Misfits on Hulu. I don’t know, does that enhance or detract from my nerdiness?

P.S. I didn’t post this as a shared topic cause the only thing I had was Darth Noteholder. Whole wrong galaxy thing and all. But you should go check them out!

I’ve been feeling bad about not organizing a bucket list of things to do before Mists arrives. I thought I had one but after taking screen shots of Theramore I realized that’s really all I had on my bucket list.

What to do … what to do.

I have favorite locations in Azeroth. I’m a sightseer. I like to hang around in isolated spots waiting for the NPCs to go off script cause they know nobody else is around. I just KNOW they’re going to do it, I just need to be patient. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m still hopeful. I thought I’d travel to Feralas and kind of commune with an Ancient about it, seemed appropriate. I love Feralas, I even still love Dire Maul after all the Insane grinding there. I spent some time with an Ancient at Feathermoon Stronghold in deep meditation and finally sorted things out.

My blog should really be called something like “Go Ahead, I’ll Catch Up, I’m an Expansion Behind You” because I haven’t seen most of the dungeons in Wrath, forget about Cata dungeons. I thought about getting to 50 exalted reps but just wasn’t feeling it. So I decided to try to see as many unseen dungeons as possible … before, you know … I start dying too much. And then I found this great guide for the Lunar Festival at Achievements Ahoy, so I can do Elders of the Dungeons at the same time. I had it almost finished but it was reset by Cata. So, Ta Da!

My Bucket List

See as many unseen dungeons as possible before Mists

That’s it! And I might try to pick up a few exalteds along the way.

Okay, mission accomplished. Thanks, Ancient One.

So I was there in Feralas and I thought, you know, you can’t really come here and not visit the Twin Colossals. Yeah, well nothing is ever easy is it?

The view from the top is incredible, well worth the trip. I was enjoying it, but Kalin Windflight kept pestering me about buying his parachute. Sometimes I think fishing all alone up there, all the time, is making him a little … you know, looney.

He hasn’t gotten the word yet about flying in Azeroth maybe. Anyway, I told him I didn’t need one, thanks, I’m a Druid, I can fly. I felt kind of bad. Maybe I should have just bought one. I don’t know what his financial situation is.

I jumped, and yeah. I forgot I’d rebound my flight key. Dead. I heard Kalin call down, “How’s that whole I don’t need a parachute I can fly, I’m a Druid, thing working out for you?” Now that I remember, he always was a Mr. Smarty Pants.

And things just got worse. I smacked into a ledge about half way down. I released and tried to fly up to my body in wisp form. Duh, can’t fly in wisp form here. I don’t know how long I tried to jump, hop and hop-jump up to my body, but I finally gave in and went back to the spirit healer and the whole thing cost me 34 gold. I should have bought his parachute.

Did I learn something? Yes, no more nostalgia tripping about how good everything was back in the day. Many things were great back in vanilla, but not being able to collect your corpse and having to use the spirit healer, ugh, not one of them.

And next time I visit Feralas, I’m getting Kalin back. I mean he could have thrown me a rope or something, geez.

Alright, first … I just had to bite my tongue. It must be the mother in me … but hon … really? Don’t you think you could put some tights on or something and a shirt for heaven sakes? Is that really appropriate … okay, tongue bitten. She’s a grown Druid, if she wants to parade across the country dressed as a holiday strumpet that’s not my business.

I told her I’d meet her with a piece of Graccu’s Mince Meat Fruitcake I had so she could complete her achievement. There, another one done, what’s next?

Oh wow, I think this ship has sailed, at least on my server. She stood in Dalaran forever hoping another Snowman would show up to dance with her for A Frosty Shake but no luck. The only good thing was it got her to finally take off her Winter Garb, whew. She completed Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho’s, looks like the next step is to go warm the hearts of the horde with her caroling skills.

I told her I’d be back to help her with that. I had to walk the real life dogs first. She’s met them so she said fine, take your time. I didn’t really feel all that great but IRL there is no NOT WALKING THE DOGS ALLOWED, EVER. The dogs are strict taskmasters and I must obey or there will be consequences … the kind I won’t like.

Logically, I do know that the laws governing the universe do not suspend during holidays, I really do know that. Nonetheless, I continue to treat holidays like they come with a calorie amnesty. Last night we were in the mood to watch I Am Legend. During the viewing of the movie I ate two ham sandwiches with a side of Doritos then for dessert had a bowl of ice cream with the rest of the belgian chocolates kind of like a topping. All of this was washed down with red wine. I attribute it to my concern for Will Smith because I knew what was coming next in the movie, so I really wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating, that’s my story anyway.

So on the dog walk, universal law number 1176 kicked in. Said law states, “If you are going to feel sick, you will be at the maximum walking distance from your home.” It is somewhat comforting to know our lives are governed by laws you can count on however inconvenient they may be.

At maximum distance I felt a near uncontrollable urge to ralph the previous evening’s eating marathon results. We were at this point, in front of a lovely, well-maintained mail box in a manicured lawn. Not good. Luckily the way back is downhill and my dog thought it was great fun to run at breakneck speeds down the hill to the woods part of our walk, otherwise known as pooping station two. With glee he helped me clear a path through the bushes where I could ralph to my heart’s content out of the view of curious passers-by.

Yes, a cautionary tale isn’t it. Learn from my mistakes, there is no food amnesty on holidays. Repeat it, know it, learn it. Right … will do. Next year will be totally different. Ah, I feel so much better.Well enough to don a Gaudy Winter Veil Sweater and go impress the horde with my incredible singing prowess which is what I love about Azeroth. In Azeroth I have incredible singing prowess, IRL … um … not so much.